The word 'Allah' no matter the origin pre Muhammad is understood in the Islamic context today as the Quranic deity. It is not a word that depicts the Trinitarian Yahweh-Elohim(Lord God) of the Bible. It is wrong for any translation of the Bible in any language to use this word 'Allah' to refer to the God of the Bible. Doing so brings confusion and ambiguity between what the Bible teaches as the Trinitarian monotheistic God with that of the 'Allah' of the Quran. It cannot be considered as a mere argument over semantics for Christians of the protestant/evangelical variety. To use 'Allah' synonymously in reference to the Biblical deity is both confusing for the Muslims and Christians as to which God one is referring to as it is poles apart theologically. There is the danger for both sides untaught of its respective theologies to think it is the same God who is worshipped.Christians must distinguish themselves in their doctrine and not use an Arabic word for the Biblical God.

1. In today's religious context, the word 'Allah' is a word loaded with Islamic theology. The God of the Christian Bible Yahweh-Elohim beginning from Genesis to Revelation is a Trinitarian monotheistic God. It is not a creation of the Church but it is an inspired Biblical revelation. Its mathematics is hard to understand but it is the heart of John 3: 16, the Gospel in a nutshell. That is, the Trinitarian monotheistic God the "Father", sending forth God the "Son", Christ Jesus, who incarnated in the human flesh, to offer Himself as the blood-sacrifice, a substitute to take upon Himself the sin of doomed humanity, dying on the cross and rising up again on the third day from the dead thereby saving humanity from God's wrath upon sin. After Christ resurrection and ascension, as promised by Him, God the Holy Spirit descended upon the earth to indwell every true believer of Christ (the Church), according to the Scriptures (Bible) to enable the believer to live a holy life and to be the seal of redemption testifying in the heart of the forgiveness of sin in Christ Jesus. The Christian Gospel is based on this redemptive revelation of the triune Godhead. The Quranic concept of 'Allah' is in total opposition to this. There is NO similarity between them whatsoever.

2. The early 'Christian missionaries', erred when they started to Christianize pagan words so that the 'converts' from the Christianized colonies and communities are not brought into a religio-social vacuum. Therefore, the word Allah that pre-dates Islam, a word that was and is a non Hebrew word for a pagan deity, the "Moon-god" of the pre Muhammad Arabs was Christianized and retained among the Middle Eastern Arab Christian converts finding its way in the Arabic Bible translation. Post Muhammad this same "Moon-god" is now appropriated and identified with the Islamic Quran by Muhammad. This contextualization of the Arabic word, Allah, in Bible translation, was followed in Asia and many parts of the world where there was a Muslim-Arabic religious influence. It was wrong then and it is wrong now.

3. The word 'Allah' is a transliteration of the Arabic word and it does not represent the Hebrew God of the Bible pre or post Muhammad. To be true, the translators at that time ought to have transliterated the Hebrew words, 'Jehovah' (Lord) and 'Elohim' (God) incorporating it in the ethnic language of a people group , thus introducing the God of the Bible without any confusion to any locally known pagan deities. Why use the Arabic word 'Allah' for the Biblical God revealed to the Jewish Hebrew speaking prophets of the Old Testament and the Jewish apostles/associates of the New Testament? After all 'the people of the Book', the Jews, were worshipping 'Jehovah-Elohim' 500 years before Mohammed appropriated this "Moon-god", Allah, as the deity of Islam. No matter how it is insisted, it is a betrayal of the God of the Bible to call Him 'Allah' of Muhammad's Islam. Words do not exist in a vacuum and they are loaded with implications. When we import from the Quran a word that is alien to the Jewish Bible, we also import its Islamic teachings.

4. Since the Old Testament of the Bible was written in Hebrew, the language of the Jews, modern translations must use the TRANSLITERATED Hebrew words for the God of the Bible when a generic word is unavailable in any local language to distinguish the God of the Bible (since 'Allah' is a loaded Islamic word today). The same consistency must apply even for the New Testament (written in Greek) for God and Lord ('Theos' and 'Kurios') for it is a reference to the same Biblical God of the Old Testament. If there was no indigenous word or equivalence for a word in another language, people have always transliterated the foreign word, contextualizing it with slight changes and adding it to the local vocabulary. The Indonesian and Malaysian languages are testament to this. Words like 'confrontasi' for confrontation, 'reformasi ' for reformation, etc., have now become part of the Malay/Indonesian vocabulary. Therefore, Bible translation must be in keeping with its revelatory language in translation and when untranslatable, transliterated.

5. The Arabic word 'Allah' is an unwarranted intrusion in the translation of the Jewish Christian Bible. No matter what the linguistic root and all the semantics about 'Allah', this word is not found in the Biblical text in reference to the Biblical God. This word 'Allah' is now well distinguished as the deity of the Quran. The 'Allah' of the Quran is in total contradiction to the triune 'Yahweh-Elohim'of the Bible. To insist on this word, Allah, as a generic universal word for 'God' in Bible translations is to speak in a vacuum. Translators cannot ignore its Islamic theological import. The usage of this word 'Allah' in Bible translations therefore Islamizises Christianity, blurring Biblical theology. No wonder people are casually saying that all gods are the same; particularly the Jewish God, the Christian God and the Islamic God as one and the same. Muslims all over the world are claiming that 'Allah' is the same God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who were all Hebrew speaking Jews of the nation of Israel.The Quranic 'Allah' is an alien concept to the Biblical 'Elohim-Yahweh'.

6. 'Allah', in today's understanding and context refers solely to the Islamic deity. If Christians continue to use this word 'Allah', we are then likening and admitting that the 'Allah' of the Quran is the same God of the Bible. In time this blurring of meaning and theological import will eventually draw nominal Christians closer to Islam. In fact the blurring of the line has happened right now with the present generation of both Muslims and 'Christians'. Nominal Christendom is led to believe that the Quran is an extended text of the Bible for it mentions the names of many Jewish prophets of Israel. But it is far from the truth for the Bible is the historical narrative of the Jewish nation founded by 'Yahweh-Elohim' Himself (Genesis 11: 10ff). It was this divine calling out of one man, Abraham, from the Ur of ancient Chaldees to the present Promised Land of Israel. This Jewish nation became the chosen "people of the Book", the custodians of the inspired revelatory redemptive record of God kept through the ages for humanity. It is in this context of Jewish history realized in the lineage of Abraham's only 'promised' son of Sarah, Isaac, and in his son, Jacob, the 12 sons of Jacob became the 12 tribes to whom the Biblical Jewish prophets were born. Holy Scriptures, therefore, were revealed in the context of Jewish national history, a nation founded by 'Yahweh-Elohim' himself. The Bible therefore, was not a heavenly book-drop into a man's lap but developed in the living experience of Jewish people entwined as part and parcel of Jewish history.

7. The Biblical prophets were not Arabs nor were their lives and names connected to any Arab history and that's an undeniable fact. Having heard the Jewish Scripture from 'the people of the Book' and the disciples of Christ Jesus 500 hundreds years after Christ ascension, the Arabian Muhammad of Arabia selectively plagiarized the Jewish historical narrative 'Arabizing' and 'Muslimizing' the Jewish Biblical patriarchs and prophets in his Quranic utterances without any Arabic historical context. The Quran has no Arabic historical context and it is not a narrative of 'Allah' leading the Arabs as a chosen people or 'Allah' revealing sacred Scripture to the Arabic prophets. The evidence is found in the way the Quran is scripted. It is a compilation of mere disjointed verses devoid of historical context compiled in chapters from the shortest to the longest. The Quran has a corrupted and fragmented version of the Jewish Bible.

If the Muslim claim that the Bible was corrupted by the early Christians and that God needed to reissue it in its uncorrupted form is true, why would Elohim (God) of the Jewish nation outsource this effort to an illiterate Arab, Muhammad, disconnected with the Jewish revelatory history of Israel? Will it not be reasonable to think that God would have raised many other Jewish prophets for such a task? God has done this very thing as was the case when Moses angrily broke the stone tablets on which God 'wrote' the Ten Commandments when he saw his people worshiping a golden calf in his absence (Exodus 32). God reissued it verbatim on tablets of stone to the Hebrew Moses as replacement. Another case to mention is the reissue of the Word of God, dictated verbatim by the mouth of the Hebrew prophet Jeremiah and scripted by Baruch his scribe, a message to the Hebrew king of Judah, Jehoiakim after he destroyed the first scroll (Jeremiah 36: 27-32). God did not outsource it to an Arab 'Moon-god' worshiper in Arabia.

However, the evidence to this bold charge of Biblical corruption by the Muslims is still the missing link like the missing ape-man of evolution. It remains a fanciful story only in the minds of the Muslim mob desperately needing a historical narrative for the existence of the Quran. So the Quran without the Bible loses its relevancy as a religious book. The Muslims will not know anything of the Jewish prophets mentioned in the Quran if not for the information found only in the Hebrew Bible today. The comprehensive historical narrative and the depth of detail in the Bible compared to the disjointed and hodgepodge mention of biblical names in the Quran out of its Jewish context reveals Muhammad's plagiarism of the Bible to any reasonable fair minded student. Ignorant of these facts, many untaught in the Biblical faith will in no time begin to think that 'Yahweh-Elohim' of the Jewish Bible and the 'Allah' of the Quran is one and the same. This is the goal of the Ecumenical Movement and the Inter-faith purpose of the dialogue to unite all religions as worshipping one and the same God. NO, WE DO NOT!The word 'Allah' is the god of the Quran as appropriated and defined by Mohammed, is alien to the Bible.

8. Furthermore, since the word 'Allah' pre-existed Muhammad and if it was common word for God then, why didn't Moses use this word interchangeably or even appropriating it? If 'Allah' is the one Abraham was worshipping, why didn't the Apostles use this word in the New Testament writings? If it was 'Allah' revealing Himself to the Jews, why didn't the Jewish writers use this word 'Allah' in the Jewish Bible? God's original revelation was written in Hebrew related to the Jewish history and not Arab history. Why in the first place did not "Allah" reveal to the Arab people in Arabic but to the Jews in Hebrew? If as Muslims claim that the original Word is corrupted, where is the proof? If that is true, why would God then reveal it again in another language, to another people, out of its historical context, to Arabs in Arabic and not in Hebrew in the Jewish context by raising other Jewish prophets? Well these are the kind of Questions that a fair person may ask a Muslim.

Both the Bible and the Quran cannot be right in its claims about the revelation God:

Jesus never married and taught monogamy referring to the Genesis account of creation but Muhammad taught and practiced polygamy (22 wives, one of them a 6 year old child-wife, Aisha).

Jesus was a Jew, a descendant of King David of Israel but Muhammad was an Arab of Saudi Arabia.

The triune monotheistic God of the Bible is antithetical to the unknown monotheistic Allah of the Quran.

Jesus' claim to be the prophetical fulfillment of Jewish and Gentile redemptive history is antithetical to Muhammad's claim as the last prophet outside the Jewish prophetical context.

Peter and Paul's declaration that Jesus is THE only Savior-Mediator between God and sinful man is antithetical to the Quran which says Jesus is only a prophet-messenger inferior to Muhammad, the last prophet. (How strange and absurd a thought by an Arab to think himself to be the last prophet in the lineage of the Jewish prophetical revelatory history? It is an astounding brazen claim bankrupt of authenticity.)

Jesus promised salvation to those who believed in Him (certainty of hope in Christ) but Muhammad offered rules and regulations and uncertainty of salvation for those who followed his religion, Islam ('inshalah' fatalism).

The Bible is a historical narrative of creation of the universe, creation of man, God's creation of the Jewish nation, the writing of the Biblical record, the prophecies concerning the coming of Christ and the Gospel narrative of Jesus Christ but the Quran is devoid of any historical context of a people, nation, prophecy borrows from the Jews for its relevance.

So it goes on. We do not worship the same God, not at any long shot.

9. THE Word of God, The Bible, is the uncorrupted final word to humanity. It is Jesus who said, 'I am the Way and the Truth and the Life. No man comes unto the Father (God) but by me' (John 14: 6). Jesus affirmed and confirmed the Hebrew Bible and never once used the Arabic word, 'Allah', referring to 'Elohim', nor did the Old and the New Testament writers of the Bible preach and teach in the name of 'Allah' as the God of the Bible. To do so it would be to preach and teach the Arabic 'moon god', 'Allah' of the pagan, polytheistic, polygamous Arabs 500 years before Muhammad was born. Muhammad's Islam is in fact the worship of the primitive Arab "Moon-god" in plagiarized Biblical jargon. It is a counterfeit religion riding like a tick on a lion's back.

The Quran has no people-context, no redemptive-history, no revelatory-relevance, no consistent and compelling theology and no human story but haphazard sentence edicts (aayaths). So says the Muslim theologian:

"The Qur'an ... is not the discursive style of the other ordinary books which the Qur'an adopts. The style the Qur'an does adopt is not merely the assertive style of scientific books or the discursive style of the history books or the expressive style of the books of literature. However, the Qur'an does accept all of these styles. The Qur'an does not assert the required point by elaborating on the branches and sub-branches of a selected central topic. The Qur'an's has not been a method in which the subject is first determined on the foundations of which is then divided the various chapters and sub-tittles. It is in a very haphazard manner that a varied assortment of subjects are dealt within its pages."

That's the reason the Muslims rely on the Hadith and the Sunnah, the extra-Quranic writings for their narrative and Islamic practice and rituals. (The Sunnah and the Hadith are conjectural/unreliable stories about Muhammad and say so the Islamic theologians.) Without these extra-Quranic writings the Quran is meaningless without a context. Yet the claim of the Quran is for its own completeness, forbidding the devotees not to consult any other 'books' for their faith. But this is explained away or conveniently ignored evn though the Quran says specifically that the QURAN, IS TO BE THE ONLY SOURCE of religious teachings and that THE ACCEPTANCE OF ANY OTHER SOURCES for religious guidance equals the setting up of OTHER gods besides Allah. See below:

"Say (O Muhammad), 'Whose testimony is greater?' Say, 'God is the witness between me and you that THIS QURAN was given to me to preach it to you, and to whomever it reaches.' However, you certainly bear witness that you set up other gods beside God (by upholding other sources beside Quran). Say, 'I will never do what you are doing; I disown your idol worship." (6:19) And "This is some of the wisdom revealed to you (in this Quran), and YOU SHALL NOT SET UP ANY OTHER GOD BESIDE GOD (by following any other source beside Quran). Otherwise, you will be thrown into hell, blamed and debased." (17:39) When the Quran says that it is COMPLETE, PERFECT, & FULLY DETAILED, why do then the Muslims seek other sources (Sunnah and the Hadith) to understand the Quran? And again,

"We did not leave anything out of this book, then all will be gathered before their Lord (for judgment). Those who do not believe our verses are deaf and dumb; in total darkness. God sends astray whomever He wills, and directs whomever He wills in the right path." (6:38-39) "Shall I seek other than God as a source of law, when He revealed THIS BOOK FULLY DETAILED? (6:114) "The word of your Lord is COMPLETE in truth & justice." (6:115)

This shows that the Quran has no historical context and the Muslims need to find their stories in the unreliable writings of the Sunnah and the Hadith for relevance. And no Muslim will be caught reading the compelling redemptive story of the Bible lest the Islamic sword of the Mullahs or the bearded Imams of Allah swings down their weak necks. So for this reason, Christians who take the Bible as God's authoritative Word (the only revelation from God) should not use the word 'Allah' to refer to the Hebrew God of the Bible.

10. The Indonesian/Malay and the Middle Eastern Bible translations erroneously use the word 'Allah' to refer to the God of the Bible. Even though the argument that it is not an exclusive word for the Muslims because it pre-dates Islam and that it is currently used by Arabic speaking Christian minority, this Islamic deity called 'Allah' is never found in the Hebrew text of the Bible. Hebrew, Aramaic and Arabic languages may have similar linguistic root from where it branched out but since the birth of Islam, 'Allah', is a word that refers to the deity of the Quran ('There is no god but Allah'). This Muslim deity is antithetical to the Biblical God, Jehovah-Elohim. They are poles apart even though many untaught people say there is only a minor difference. They mean well but have not investigated the content and theology of the Bible and the Quran.

11. Bible translations are human efforts and in this digital age correction can be easily done to remove the word 'Allah' and replaced with 'Jehovah' and/or 'Elohim' transliterated in any ethnic language. 'Christians' who have used the Islamic word, 'Allah', for whatever time period must be told of its Islamic implications and the errors made earlier by translators and enlighten them. Education is the enlightening of people from ignorance to knowledge as new information avails as it is realized or discovered. Most who claim to be Christians are untaught of the Biblical truths. Most are adherents to the rites and form without a clue to its theological basis to their faith. So, like any other education, evangelical teacher/pastors need to educate the dill and the bright with sound doctrine. New Bible translation with 'Allah' removed ought to be phased in with theological education. The use of any word depicting/portraying the God of the Bible should be in keeping with the Hebrew terminology and etymology. Words may have common root in a locality but they are not to be thought as one and the same. Hebrew script and language is vastly different from the Arabic.

12. Words carry meaning and its message and a change of language from the original Biblical language has within itself the danger of confusing meaning and message of the original revelation. So does the word 'Allah' of Arabia, it cannot be the same God of the Jewish revelatory God. Arab Christians who believe in the Biblical 'Yahweh-Elohim' should particularly distinguish themselves with Jewish terminology for deity to show the Muslims that they do not worship their Allah but the Jewish triune monotheistic Godhead, Elohim-Yahweh. The moon crescent as Islamic symbol is proof of the pagan origin of the Islamic 'Allah' and therefore calling the Biblical God as 'Allah' is heretical. The Arabic Bibles must also remove this word. Change for the better is not bad but for the refining of us all in clearer terms of what we represent.

13. Allah' then is the Islamization of the Christian. If I was a Muslim I would welcome the Christians to use the word 'Allah' to refer to their Biblical God 'Elohim-Yahweh' for it plays into the Islamic faith. Well, if the Christian God is also Allah, then the Christian is none other than a wayward Muslim for that is the God of Islam. In time when the lines are blurred and ignorance of the biblical doctrines blooms to blinding bliss, Islam will be a tempting option for a nominal 'Christian'.

14. The names of God translated in different linguistic contexts during the early missionary days were often in error. The translators struggled to learn a new language, involving vocabulary, syntax, metaphors, etc and then learn to speak it and scripting it and then finally the attempt to translate the Hebrew/Greek Biblical text to the newly acquired language must have been a difficult task in itself. The mistake that was made by most or all of them was to use the name of the local pagan deity to refer to the biblical God. For example, William Carey, a great man as he was, erred in the Bengali translation of the Bible using the name of the Hindu god, Ishwar, for the Hebrew 'Elohim . It was a pragmatic reason but a wrong one. So in Persia, it was 'Khoda'; 'Mungu' in East Africa and so on. They thought that by identifying the Biblical God to a local deity the new converts will find it easier to relate to Him. Instead of introducing this 'unknown' God (c.f. Acts 17: 22- 18: 17) now revealed to them the translators chose the name of one of their local pagan gods, contextualized it, and equated it to 'Yahweh-Elohim' of the Bible. These names are NOT translations but contextualization. In like manner, 'Allah' is the pagan 'moon god' of the Arabs pre-dating Muhammad and now the name of the god of Islam.

15. There are only two Abrahamic faiths, Judaism and the Messianic-Christian faiths. Islam is NOT one of them for Muhammad was never a Jew but an Arab, not a descendant of Isaac and Jacob the sons of Abrahamic faith. The Quran has nothing to do with the 'people of the Book' (the Jewish Old Testament and the Christian Bible). Islam is a religion with its roots in the pagan 'moon god' of the Arabs during the time of Muhammad with no Jewish historical context. Without the Bible for its source to plagiarize, it will exist in a philosophical vacuum of meaningless verses (aayaths) hence their heavy reliance on the Hadith and the Sunnah. Without these extra-Quranic writings they have no religion of Islam.

16. The question is: What was the difficulty in calling the Biblical God by the Hebrew terminology, Elohim, in any language transliterated, since it cannot be translated?

Why use a pagan concept for deity with its loaded pagan myths? The principle of introducing Elohim to people groups should have been applied universally and in Bible translations since their faith is of the Jewish/Hebraic context. Even though Allah was the pre-Islamic word, the Bible uses not the Arabic word which was a reference to the moon god. Muhammad appropriated this word Allah for his Quranic concept of his deity.

If a word cannot be translated, it must be transliterated, as we do even today. It is foolish of the Bible translators to retain this word 'Allah' in Bible translations arguing on semantics and pre-Islam history of this word. It is foolish of Bible translators not to correct it by transliterating the Hebrew words 'Jehovah' or 'Yahweh' for Lord and 'Elohim' for God to refer to the Biblical God. The Bible translators could have easily changed it and explained the changes in the Introduction or the Preface of translations but they foolishly decided to carry on with the error of the early translators. If there is a strong public demand for this change, the publishers will print a revised edition of the Bibles. What is wrong must be corrected no matter how long the error was committed.

So my contention is this: the word "Allah" is now associated with theological Islam as the name of the Muslim deity. Bible translators erroneously used this word in Bible translations instead of transliterating 'Jehovah-Elohim' in local languages. That which is wrong need to be set right like Luther did restoring the true God of Christianity anchored in the language of the Bible.

17. The intrusion of a transliterated Arabic word alien to the Hebrew/Greek text of the Bible is importing a pagan concept foreign to the Biblical teaching. What is so exegetically wrong about Elohim which is a transliterated Hebrew word, true to the Biblical text? There will be no confusion then between Allah and Elohim. The Ecumenical Movement is pushing for a unity of all religions and the unifying of the concept of God. It will bring about the blurring and ambiquity of all theological differences to a one world religion as predicted of the end times before Jesus returns to earth again.

See the following comment of a Roman Catholic liberal theologian/ecumenist:

"This use of Allah in translations of the Bible has served as a bridge between Christians and Muslims for understanding one another. A Christian official in the Vatican, Thomas Michel, emphasizes, "For fourteen centuries Arabic speaking Christians, Muslims and Jews have called God 'Allah', a common witness that in spite of our difficulties our God is one and the same. . . . It is the firm conviction of Christians today, and has been through the centuries, that the God of Muslims and Christians is one, and hence we must oppose any attempts to give the impression that we worship different Gods by the use of different names for the one and the same God. . . . I have personally discussed this matter with Arab and Indonesian Muslim scholars, and they firmly support the importance of the one name for the one God."http://web.mac.com/papuamissions/Jakarta/Allah_files/Allah%20in%20the%20BIBLE.pdf

There it is from the mouth of a Vatican heretical theologian, Thomas Michel, "It is the firm conviction of Christians today, and has been through the centuries, that the God of Muslims and Christians is one, and hence we must oppose any attempts to give the impression that we worship different Gods by the use of different names for the one and the same God. . . ."

Is the Allah of the Quran the same God the Father of the Bible?

1. Is this the same Allah who loved the world so much that He sent His only begotten 'Son' to be crucified on the cross to die for sinners? (John 3: 16-18)

2. Was the Apostle Peter right when he proclaimed that there is no name under God's heaven whereby sinners can be saved but by the name of Jesus? (Acts 4: 12)?

3. If the word 'Allah' pre-dates Islam and in usage during the time Christ, why didn't Jesus refer to God as Allah, but Elohim and Yahweh (Adonai)? Why didn't Moses use this name Allah in Genesis 1: 1?

4. If Allah is Elohim, will Muslims agree with the Lord Jesus when He said, "I am the way, the truth and the life? No one comes to the Father (God) but through me."? (John 14: 6)

5. If Allah is Elohim, will Muslims agree with Jesus when He said, I and the Father (God) are one. He who has seen me has seen the Father (God) also"? (John 14: 8-11)

6. Is the Bible right when it is emphatic that no one should add, alter or take away from it? See below:

(Deuteronomy 4:2) "You shall not add to the word which I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you."

(Deuteronomy 12:32) "Whatever I command you, be careful to observe it; you shall not add to it nor take away from it."

(Galatians 1:9-10) "If anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed. For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I pleased men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ."

(2 Corinthians 11:4) "For if he who comes preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or if you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted, you may well put up with it!" [I.e. don't tolerate heresy]

(Proverbs 30:5-6) "Every word of God is pure; He is a shield to those who put their trust in Him. Do not add to His words, lest He rebuke you, and you be found a liar."

(Revelation 22:18-19) "If anyone adds to these things, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this book; and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the Book of Life, from the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book."

Where does Muhammad's Quran fit in the Jewishness of the Bible? It is not just the issue of the word 'Allah' but is He the same one who is the God of the Triune Godhead the Bible reveals. To worship this Creator God one must first believe that Jesus is the Son of God, the Savior of mankind sent by God the Father. We read that those who reject Jesus as the Son of God are condemned already. Muhammad and his followers reject this fundamental truth spoken by Jesus, are they not condemned already? These are not my words but Scripture. (Read John 3: 18, 36)

The use of 'Allah' in the Bible translations will lend itself easily to the ecumenical inter-faith movement and towards a one world religion before Jesus returns to earth again.All 'gods' are not the same God of the Bible and not all religious teachings are true or the same. Those who have studied into the major religions will know that the teachings are irreconcilably different from the Biblical faith. All religions not of the biblical faith have one common theme, that is, their nirvana, paradise or 'heaven' is of good works and human effort and the uncertainty of attaining this bliss. Unlike the faith of the Bible, that humanity is saved by the merciful grace of Yahweh-Elohim and the forgiveness of sins and salvation a free gift of God through faith in the sacrificial death of Jesus theChrist ('anointed' or 'appointed') once for all time. It is not gained by human efforts or good works, lest any sinner should boast. (Eph 2: 8, 9)

There is a push now for an interfaith dialogue to bring all religions to a common belief, reduced to basically two tenets:

1. There is a god of some sort somewhere who may or may not be interested in human affairs.

2. Human beings must do 'good' for one another in human solidarity despite the racial, religious or social difference. Well, nothing is wrong with the second point but if that is what it is all about, we are most pitiable to wrangle about God for who needs an abstract god who maybe there or he/she/it may not be there.

For anyone who claims to be a Christian this is not a matter of personal opinion but one must obey what the Bible says. One's guess work of what one thinks is Christian makes void the authority of the revealed Word of God. It is trivializing the God of the Bible. Christian faith is not how you want it to be but abiding by what is revealed in God's holy Word. So the Quranic 'Allah' surely cannot be the same God of the Bible. It does not evoke the concept of the triune God of the Bible who sent His only begotten Son into the world to save sin damned humanity.

CONCLUSION:

Being children of Adam and Eve we share a common humanity and that is all. We do our best to live in peace respecting other opinions and religious faiths. There is no need to fight for our faiths or take upon ourselves to violently defend our Faith like the Muslims are urged to do. Truth stands on its own and it needs no puny humans to defend it. Any religious faith whose god need to be defended by violence or blasphemy laws to hang those who question its veracity, proves it is bankrupt of truth. Compelling truth acts on its own and all its devotees need to do is preach, teach and reason with love to the ears of humanity. One cannot proclaim loud that his god is great and then kill others who critique this 'great god' and his 'prophet' who is weak to defend his own name. We can only share with one another what our Faith is all about but no one must be compelled to believe by birth into a religion, by the law of a nation or by the threat of the sword. We can share-compare and leave it there amicably. But on earth we can enjoy each other's company and in love be generous and charitable to one and all no matter our creed and race. We must love regardless and be the best of friends in our differences.

"Charity (Love) never faileth:...For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. And now abideth faith, hope, charity (love), these three; but the greatest of these is charity (love)."

(1 Corinthians 13: 8a, 12, 13).

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".

John 3:16 contains one of the most Christian statements of the Bible ("For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life"). The classic Van Dyke translation into Arabic uses the word Allah here, as does every other translation I have located, even a Coptic one, which I expected to use Rabb. So, Brutus Balan has an uphill fight on his hands.

Oct. 14, 2013 update: In deciding the Malaysian lawsuit whether Christians may use the word Allah to refer to God, Court of Appeal Judge Datuk Mohd Zawawi Salleh refers to this remarkable comment by Brutus Balan in deciding against permitting the word to be used. For the text of his judgment, see "Grounds of judgment by Judge Datuk Mohd Zawawi Salleh." For discussion of this decision, click here.

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Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".